An updated 2402 but with the revised lightweight arm designed to take the MMC5 cartridge.
Rather an afterthought, the 2404 was designed to work with the Beomaster 2400-2 and was fitted with the 7 pin DIN plug to allow control by remote. This was not compatible with Datalink. The last UK model of this design and interesting simply because it had the new cartridge but the old remote control software unlike the Beogram 6000 which boasted the new software and old cartridge.
Beogram 2000 was an integrated two-speed (33rpm and 45 rpm) high-fidelity stereo record player with high specifications. But it was the simple, easy operation which was the most unique feature in Beogram 2000. A single master control executed all the essential functions.
All you need to do was to select the size of a record, 7″, 10″ or 12″ and press the button marked LIFT. Immediately, the turntable began to rotate at the correct speed (33 or 45 rpm) and the pick-up lowered into the first groove. At the end of the record, the pick-up arm returned to its resting position and the turntable switched off. Beogram 2000 was fitted with its own pick-up cartridge, SP 10A. This had a spherical naked diamond stylus.
Recommended- stylus pressure was 2 g. Its frequency range was 20-25.000 Hz ±3 dB. Distortion was lower than 1%, wow and flutter lower than 0.12% and rumble better than 60dB. Thanks to the pendulum suspension of the turntable and its pick-up am Beogram 2000 was insensitive to vibrations. A transparent dust lid was fitted to Beogram 2000. It could be opened at any angle up to 60 degrees or you could slide it off with ease.
This deck finally gave the ‘peg platter’ decks a proper lid. Not quite as advanced as the 1202, it was in all ways apart from the lid, a Beogram 1203.
Beogram 1203 was an automatic, high-fidelity stereo record-player with high specifications. It was beautifully-styled and extremely easy to operate. All you need to do was select the record size: 7″, 10″ or 12″ and press a button. The turntable automatically selected the correct speed: 33% or 45, and the pickup was lowered into the first groove.
At the end of the record, the arm automatically returned to its resting position and the turntable switched off. Beogram 1203 was fitted with its own pick-up cartridge, the SP 14A which had a spherical diamond stylus and a stylus pressure of 2g. Its frequency range was 20,000 Hz. ±3 dB. Distortion was lower than 1%, wow and flutter lower than ±0.15 % and rumble better than 58dB. The turntable and pick-up arm had a pendulum suspension which made the record-player insensitive to vibrations. A transparent dust lid and a spindle adaptor for playing centreless records were supplied with Beogram 1203.
It was in fact rather simpler than its immediate predecessor, the 1202 , and was based on the Beogram 2000 rather than the top of the range 3000.
Beogram 3000 was an automatic high-fidelity stereo record-player with specifications which easily complemented those of Beomaster 3000-2.
It was fitted with an SP 12A pick-up cartridge which had an elliptical naked diamond stylus, with a stylus pressure of 1,2g. Frequency range was 20 – 25000 Hz ±3 dB and distortion was lower than 1%. Wow and flutter was less than ±0.09% and rumble was better than 62dB. Beogram 3000 was easy to operate: you simply selected the size of record you intend to play – 7″, 10″ or 12″ – and press a button. The record-player automatically selected the record speed, 33 or 45 rpm, and lowered the pick-up into the first groove.
When the record ended, the pick-up arm lifted up, returned to its resting position and the turntable switched off. The turntable and pickup arm had a pendulum suspension which made the record-player insensitive to vibrations. The deep furrows in the turntable made it easy to pick up records. A hinged dust lid was fitted; it could be set at any angle up to around 60 degrees or completely removed by a simple sliding action.
Beocenter 8000 gave you a powerful receiver – with CD player and cassette recorder hidden under covers which glided to the side when you wished to use them. Bang & Olufsen’s high quality and distinguished design made a dexterous duo with this Beocenter. Grace and simplicity emphasised Bang & Olufsen’s basic principle that technology exists for the sake of humankind – and not the other way around!
Light touches on Beocenter 8000 gave you free access to the simple operation. The illuminated display led you through all the functions by showing you what to do at every step. If you preferred, you could also use Beolink 1000 which controlled all the functions from a distance.
At the core of Beocenter 8000 was the receiver – the ‘command centre’ of the system. Here you could preset up to 20 FM/AM stations which you could locate easily by choosing a number from 1 – 20 on the display panel.
Beocenter 8000’s CD player accepted both 12cm and 8cm compact discs. At any time, you could choose a single track, or change the order in which you wanted to hear the tracks. The option was there too to skip a track.
Both recording and playback on the cassette recorder in the Beocenter 8000 offered the highest quality. One reason was Bang & Olufsen’s patented HX-PRO system which ensures optimal sound reproduction, particularly in the sensitive treble range.
When you were listening to a tape, you could change the listening order of the tracks. You could skip individual tracks, or skip to a certain track regardless of where it was on the tape. Auto Reverse is so sophisticated that you will never hear the tape change sides unless you really listen for it.
The cassette recorder automatically registered the type of tape you were using. And you could choose Dolby B or Dolby C Noise Reduction when you recorded.
Connections: Beocenter 8000 had connections for an extra cassette recorder plus two pairs of speakers. Thee was also a contact for you to connect a turntable, for example Beogram 9500.
Features: CD player with programming, tape recorder with auto reverse, FM/AM radio, finger touch control, optional Beolink 1000 remote control operation, connections for headphones, optional BeoStand.
The mirrored exterior of aluminium and smoked glass gave no hint of the power hidden beneath the surface of Beocenter 9500. Central to the concept was the AM/FM receiver. On the flanks, CD player and cassette recorder awaited their turn in the spotlight. When they were needed, a light touch on the display panel was all that was required to make lids glide to the side giving immediate access to disc or cassette. The Beocenter was designed by Jacob Jensen and was the direct descendant of Beocenter 9000. The two models features here were superceded in 1994 by Beocenter 9300.
A light touch directly on Beocenter 9500 was all you needed to access its operation. The illuminated display led you logically through the programming and other functions always showing you what to do next. This ease and simplicity of use was the first impression you obtained of the music system. And equally easy to use was the optional remote control Beolink 1000 terminal.
You could preset up to 20 FM and AM stations on the Beocenter 9500 receiver. And when you made your choice, search and fine tuning were completely automatic. Also, you could preset the receiver to switch on automatically to catch the news, or perhaps a favourite serial at just the right time. If you were out, the cassette recorder could be programmed to record and you could play back at your leisure.
You could also use the Beocenter 9500 receiver as a guaranteed alarm. In the event of a power failure during the night, the clock instantly switched to its own built-in batteries to ensure that you awoke at just the right time.
The CD player which accommodated both 12cm and 8cm compact discs was also ready for your commands. It gave you instant access to a specific track anywhere on the disc and allowed you to change the order in which the tracks were played, or to simply choose only those tracks you wished to listen to. Technology at its most convenient best. When used with Beogram 9500 the music system was known as Beosystem 9500.
The unfailing sensi-touch control of the Beocenter 9500 works through a condenser effect. A graphite area is printed on the underside of the glass panel, and charged with a high frequency current. Even the lightest touch of a finger will spark the reaction.
For individuals who could live without time-programming but wanted the advanced features of the Beocenter 9500, Bang & Olufsen created the Beocenter 8500. There was no difference in the quality of the sound, but the cabinet was finished in a soft grey as an alternative to the polished aluminium finish of Beocenter 9500.
In the BeoCenter 9000 Jensen radicalised the basic ideas that had asserted themselves in the BeoMaster 1900. It was given two ‘angles’ but it is close to being merely a horizontal, floating, blank surface. The flush concept was taken a step further: now everything is entirely flat, nothing projects. Not even the lids on the CD player and the tape recorder rise at any time above their own level, but slip quickly and noiselessly to one side. Communication with the apparatus is reduced to two black glass sheets, one for input and one for output.
The cool, clean design – at once both peaceful and effective in appearance – reflects the rational operation, which is carried out via microprocessors. With the Beomaster 1900’s division into primary and secondary operation facilities, Jensen had anticipated the computer interface of the IT age, in which priority is given to the potential of the function selector.
The Beocenter 9000 is electronic through and through: the operating instructions for the relatively complicated apparatus with its many functions are built into the control equipment. Only the entirely everyday basic functions are visible in standby. When they are touched gently, the upper glass sheet – the ‘magic mirror’ – lights up. Several possible choices emerge only when they are needed.
The best and most consummate Jensen make the user feel like a magician. It was really Jensen’s wish that the lids on the BeoCenter 9000 should slide aside entirely without being touched when a hand came close to them, but that visionary idea was difficult to realise because it would mean the lids would open, for instance, when you merely wanted to change the volume. The designer David Lewis solved that problem when he designed B&O’s next breakthrough product, the upright BeoCenter 2500 (1991). He hid all buttons behind the lids. Lewis took his further development of Jensen’s B&O audio design profile in other directions when Jensen cease designing for the company in about 1990. By then, Jensen had designed more than 100 products for B&O. The reason for B&O’s success in the 1970′ and 1980s was the management’s willingness to aim at and realise risk-filled, pioneering strategy.
The lid of the Beocenter 9000 disappears into the side of the apparatus and makes the user feel like the hero of a science fiction film. The plus values of products cannot be created on the background of qualitative or quantitative marketing surveys. Jensen’s role as the man who reads the trends of the time and uses his intuition to fulfil consumers’ unconscious wishes gives him a special role as an artist in product development.
The BeoCenter 9000 was to be Jensen’s last major breakthrough for B&O – an unadulterated operating surface. What enables Jensen to design products that are in advance of their time is his understanding of technological developments towards less bulk and greater complexity and abstraction. With the advent of microelectronics, the equipment loses its character as a tactile tool and its functions are beyond people’s immediate understanding.
The designer’s artistic freedom becomes greater – everything is possible. “Form follows function”, the idea that design should reflect the construction becomes an impossibility for most component designers. Jensen fights tooth and nail to maintain the modernist concept of honesty. He wants to avoid endowing the apparatus with familiar symbolical appearances and shapes, something that many of his contemporary, post-modern colleagues otherwise do.
Jensen’s design admits that form is on the way to being dissipated, on the way to immateriality, and so he goes from three-dimensional to two-dimensional operating services. He shows that the design of the future is about considering the man-machine relationship, communication with the apparatus, and that this is all that is left. Hardware design disappears to be replaced with software design. Jensen illustrates that technology is on its way towards invisibility and increased abstract. He chooses modernism’s abstract and reductionist idiom partly in order to bring clarity to the present-day ceaseless torrent of information and to make it comprehensible and accessible on all levels, and partly because technology in itself is abstraction.
“Less is more” is presented in concrete terms in Jensen’s reductionist designing because the cleansed surfaces and the simple and well-considered operation conceal the inconceivable complexity that is microelectronics. The modernist idiom in Jensen also reflects the abstraction to which modern man must subject himself if he wants to cope with the everyday articles of the present day, pieces of equipment. Although present-day technology is rooted in a long-standing Western tradition of rationality, rational engineering science has become so complex that it is beyond the immediate ability of our sense to imagine it. There is a need for designers who will give rational consideration to the way in which we communicate the engineers’ magic boxes and make the magic spells clear and comprehensible.
Our physical contact with the surrounding world is disappearing and being replaced with digitised virtual reality. Jensen does not try to pretend that his pieces of equipment are anything more than cool communication with technology, although he does not hesitate to turn our control of it into an experience. The functionality of the blank sensor-touch surfaces cannot be understood in the same way as an old-fashioned on-off switch. The possibilities of choice do not resemble push-buttons, but are merely abstract words that light up when we need them. They do not exist as material manifestations when we turn off the Beocenter 9000. Although Jensen’s modern domestic alters are quite profane, his design places him in art history’s long tradition of representing the immaterial as truly and beautifully as possible. ” – taken from ‘Jacob Jensen’ by Christain Holmsted Olesen.
Beocenter 9000 was designed by Jacob Jensen especially for music lovers who wanted the finest sound quality without having to bother with a mass of technical details. It became one of Bang & Olufsen’s outstanding modern classics. Beautiful to look at, with its sculptured design in glass and brushed aluminium; and pure pleasure to use and listen to.
At the time leading up to its design, Bang & Olufsen’s manager of long-range planning – Jens Bang – had just been to Japan and had bought back a strange-looking box called a ‘CD player’, the newest in technical miracles.
The ‘idea group’ at Bang & Olufsen – which included Timothy Jacob Jensen (the son of Jacob Jensen) – then began a long period of development which was to create a new Beocenter and which included a flat-screened TV, radio, CD player, tape recorder, loudspeakers, telephone and remote control, including a wristwatch with built in remote. However, after having seen around one hundred different ideas for the new hi-fi the idea group decided that the new Beocenter would just have a radio, tape recorder and CD player incorporated within it.
The new unit became an integrated system solution with amplifier, radio, cassette tape deck and CD player. By uniting all functions in one cabinet it was possible to simplify operation giving also its cabinet a simple and uniform appearance. ‘Function creates design and design creates function’. Its finish of aluminium and dark plastic gave the system an exclusive and distinct look which paralleled B&O’s other product designs. Beocenter 9000 was a direct descendant of Jacob Jensen’s famous Beogram 4000 record player and was contribution to the ID Classic Prize that B&O was awarded by the Danish Design Centre in 1990.
Two illuminated displays gave you all the information you needed. The upper display showed what was going on at the moment; the lower display gave you all the options at your disposal. Let’s say that the upper display showed ‘Radio’. If you pressed ‘3’ on the lower display you got the radio programme you preset as number 3. The same goes for records, tapes or CDs.
You could carry out most of the day-to-day operations using the Beolink 1000 remote control. For programming however, you operated the control panel directly, and again, it was very straight-forward. You could programme concerts or shows to record when you were out and then enjoy them at your leisure. You soon found yourself wondering how you ever did without the elegance and flexibility of this exceptional music centre!
The unfailing sensi-touch control of the Beocenter 9000 works through a condenser effect. A graphite area is printed on the underside of the glass panel and charged with a high frequency current. Even the lightest touch of a finger will spark a reaction.
Beocenter 9000 won the Japanese Good Design award in 1987 and the German Design Auswahl in 1986.
The tape recorder of the Beocenter 9000’s was almost fully automatic. You no longer needed to think of a cassette tape as having two sides. Auto Reverse reversed the sound head automatically so that in practice you had just one long tape at your disposal. This was of course, particularly useful for longer recordings.
Another useful feature was the automatic adjustment of the recording level, giving you total consistency throughout a number of different recordings. For noise reduction during recordings you could choose between Dolby B or C and then forget it; when you played the tape back, the recorder automatically switched to the system you used for recordings. It was also clever enough to identify whether you were using a standard, chrome or metal tape – and adjust itself accordingly.
You also had the benefit of Bang & Olufsen’s HX-Pro recording system, giving you considerably superior reproduction of the upper ranges, regardless of the type of tape. And with the automatic track search system you could quickly find a particular piece of music quickly and easily.
Just as easy to use as the rest of the music centre, the radio could be preset for up to 20 AM or FM stations. All searching and tuning was fully automatic. Just key in the frequency you want – for example ‘ FM 100.9’ – and the radio did the rest. You had plenty of choice where programming was concerned. If there was a daily programme you didn’t want to miss, you could programme it to come on at a specific time, or to record when you were out. You could have your favourite music to wake you up during the week, and cancel it to lie-in at the weekends.
The very latest innovations were used to give this CD player truly outstanding sound quality. It was also superbly flexible to use. You could find a particular track in seconds, repeat tracks at will, and programme the playing order virtually any way you liked. The choice was all yours.
The unfailing sensi-touch control of the Beocenter 9300 worked through a condenser effect. A graphite area was printed on the underside of the glass panel and charged with a high frequency current. Even the lightest touch of a finger sparked the reaction.
If you wished to use a record deck with the Beocenter, then Beogram 9000 was made to complement the rest of the hi-fi.
Beocenter 9300 really defined the word ‘classic’. It was for those who preferred to enjoy the music rather than to pore over the product manual. The design of the 9300 was around for many years before production ceased in the late 1990’s. It was available in many different versions; for example 8000, 9000, 9500 and the this last version: Beocenter 9300.
The differences between the 9500 and the 9300 was that the 9300 had a new and improved CD mechanism fitted which was faster than the previous versions. Some minor differences were that the 9300 lacked two-way remote communication and an equalizer loop-through. However, the 9300 still is still among the Bang & Olufsen greats!
BeoCenter 9300 could operate with active as well as passive loudspeakers. A mere touch activated BeoCenter 9300 and a line of sensi-touch options glowed on the lower glass display. The 9300 was a complete music system for people who prefer to enjoy music rather than poring over a product manual.
2 x 80 watt amplifier, CD player with programming, tape recorder with auto reverse, FM/AM radio with 30 preset stations, finger touch control, optional Beo4 remote control operation, connections for Beolink® and headphones, Master Control Link. There was also the option of using the BeoCenter with or without active speakers, such as BeoLab 4000 (shown above). A stand could also be bought as a separate item
Simple logical operation
A light touch directly on Beocenter 9500 was all you needed to access its operation. The illuminated display led you logically through the programming and other functions always showing you what to do next. This ease and simplicity of use was the first impression you obtained of the music system. And equally easy to use was the optional remote control Beolink 1000 terminal.
You could preset up to 20 FM and AM stations on the Beocenter 9500 receiver. And when you made your choice, search and fine tuning were completely automatic. Also, you could preset the receiver to switch on automatically to catch the news, or perhaps a favourite serial at just the right time. If you were out, the cassette recorder could be programmed to record and you could play back at your leisure.
You could also use the Beocenter 9500 receiver as a guaranteed alarm. In the event of a power failure during the night, the clock instantly switched to its own built-in batteries to ensure that you awoke at just the right time.
The CD player which accommodated both 12cm and 8cm compact discs was also ready for your commands. It gave you instant access to a specific track anywhere on the disc and allowed you to change the order in which the tracks were played, or to simply choose only those tracks you wished to listen to. Technology at its most convenient best. When used with Beogram 9500 the music system was known as Beosystem 9500.
Beocenter 1800 fulfilled hi-fi standards by a wide margin. The product was also way above the average in terms of ease and operation. Experience from Beomaster 1100 and Bang & Olufsen’s integrated gramophones were combined in the special space-saving unit, which on a specification level was on a par with many separates.
The FM section had automatic frequency control (AFC), four pre-set stations and light indicators. The amplifier’s power output was 2 x 22 watts RMS with less than 0,3% distortion at full power output.
The integrated gramophone was fully automatic. The user simply chose the size of the record and pressed a button – the machine did the rest. The pickup arm was of magnesium which was extremely light. This, together with the MMC 3000, a low-mass cartridge, made this one of the very few turntables on the marker that was capable of tracking warped records. The anti-skating device also worked automatically.
The pickup arm and the turntable mechanism had a special spring suspension which made the turntable shock and vibration resistant.
Records could be played with the dust lid closed, thus protecting both the turntable and the record collection from damaging dust particles. Beocenter 1800 had connections for tape recorder, two sets of stereo speakers and a pair of headphones.
When connected to a pair of Beovox Uni-Phase passive loudspeakers, it was known as Beosystem 1800.
